Mrs Pargeter 01; A Nice Class of Corpse

mildly.

“So what you are saying…?” asked Mr Holland.

Really he wasn’t very intelligent. Still, Mrs Pargeter reflected, you didn’t have to be very intelligent to be a solicitor. Just somehow scrape through a few exams in your twenties and then the British legal system saw to it that you had a meal ticket for life.

“What I am saying,” she explained patiently, “is that, if you really believe I stole the jewels, all you have to do is to search my room, or – crediting me with a little subtlety – search the rest of the hotel, and you will find evidence to convict me, won’t you?”

“Ye-es.” Mr Holland sounded uncertain.

“Such a search,” said Miss Naismith with distaste, “would be very upsetting to the other residents.”

At this Mrs Pargeter finally lost her temper. Without forfeiting her considerable dignity, she snapped, “Listen, if you’re prepared to upset me so easily, I don’t give a damn about your upsetting the other residents! You have to face the fact, Miss Naismith, that, repellent though it may be to your sensibilities, a robbery has taken place in the Devereux. And the circumstances of that robbery mean it was committed either by one of the residents or by one of the staff. Now it would be extremely convenient if I had committed it, because you could then quietly ask me to leave, and sweep the whole matter under the carpet.

“Unfortunately for you, I didn’t do it, so you are faced with the unpleasant prospect of starting an enquiry into the activities of the other people who live in this hotel.”

“Ah, you say you didn’t do it…”

“Yes, and, as I mentioned before, a search of the premises will prove I didn’t do it. And, if you once again make the accusation that I did do it, let me assure you I will get in touch with my solicitor and see to it that you pay me very substantial damages.”

At last Mr Holland felt they were on to a subject he knew something about. “Might I ask,” he enquired superciliously, “who your solicitor is?”

“I deal with the Justiman Partnership.”

“Oh.” He was impressed. “Might I ask who in particular you deal with there?”

“I have always had my affairs handled by Arnold Justiman.”

This was another of her fortunate legacies from the late Mr Pargeter. Her husband had been a constant employer of Arnold Justiman, one of the most eminent of his profession, and Mrs Pargeter often reflected that she owed much of her conjugal happiness to Arnold Justiman. Without his good offices, Mr Pargeter’s occasional necessary absences from the marital home would have been much longer.

“Oh. Arnold Justiman himself.” Mr Holland was now very impressed. He sat back in his chair with hands folded on his lap, as if to dismiss any idea that they might ever have contemplated reaching for a telephone. “I think, Miss Naismith, we would be very ill-advised to pursue this line of enquiry.”

“What?” asked Mrs Pargeter with a hint of mockery. “You don’t want to find out who stole the jewels?”

“Well, yes, we do. Of course we do. And in the fullness of time, in consultation with the proper authorities, I am sure that we will. I was merely suggesting that we should not be too precipitate in our actions. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Naismith?”

“Yes, yes, I would.”

The proprietress looked as if she had just swallowed something singularly disgusting and was faced with more unpalatable mouthfuls ahead. Mrs Pargeter’s openness and ready suggestion of a search had convinced her accuser that the blame for the theft lay elsewhere. That raised the unpleasant prospect of investigating the other residents of the Devereux.

And also Miss Naismith had the uncomfortable knowledge that she had overplayed her hand and allowed her antipathy to Mrs Pargeter to become too nakedly apparent.

“Well, don’t let me keep you any longer.” Mrs Pargeter rose from her chair. “On the strict understanding that the matter is never raised again, I am quite happy to forget what has been said here this morning.” She smiled sweetly at her accusers. “And do let me know if there is anything I can do to help you in your investigations into this unfortunate incident.”

She moved to the door, but stopped before she opened it.

“Oh, one thing, Miss Naismith…I wonder, would it be possible for me to hand my jewellery to you to be kept in the hotel safe…? It would be most regrettable if there were another lapse of security at the Devereux, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, of course that would be possible,” Miss Naismith replied, tight-lipped.

“Might I have a look at the safe?” asked Mrs Pargeter charmingly. “Unless it’s of a reputable manufacture, I might decide I’d be better advised to put my valuables in the bank.”

Wordlessly, Miss Naismith moved an embroidered fire-screen to reveal a square grey metal box, on which a silver plate bore the legend, ‘Clissold & Fry – Excalibur Two’.

“Oh, yes, that will be quite adequate. If I may, I’ll bring my jewellery down as soon as possible. If that’s convenient…?”

“Of course. Any time,” said Miss Naismith with a ghastly smile, as Mrs Pargeter moved gracefully out of the Office.

? A Nice Class of Corpse ?

15

In the Entrance Hall Mrs Pargeter paused for a moment of grim satisfaction. She had no doubt that she had seen off Miss Naismith, but she was still angry that the accusation had ever been made. None of the other residents would have been attacked frontally in that manner, and, though usually Mrs Pargeter was the most tolerant of individuals, another legacy of her life with the late Mr Pargeter was a certain sensitivity to imputations of criminal behaviour.

Still, she thought with a wicked little surge of glee, she had effectively diverted them from questions about what she was doing in Mrs Selsby’s room in the middle of the night.

She looked out through the glass of the closed front doors to the greyness beyond, and saw a small figure wound up in a plum-coloured coat walking briskly away from the hotel on the other side of the road. In spite of the black fur hat pulled down over the ears, she had no difficulty in recognising Mrs Mendlingham.

Mrs Pargeter decided she might put her own coat on and go for a walk.

The coat in question was a mink, which the late Mr Pargeter, always the soul of generosity, had presented to her after a particularly successful business venture, and that morning she was glad of its warmth. The weather, which had not been good for some time, seemed now to have lapsed into icy melancholy, as if it had lost faith in the idea of there ever being a summer. The wind carried a stinging spray – or maybe it was rain – and the sea was lost about fifty yards out in sticky fog.

It was not a morning for recreational walking, and Mrs Pargeter wondered where Mrs Mendlingham was headed with such apparent determination. As she emerged from the Devereux and felt the first breath-snatching blast of the weather, Mrs Pargeter could still see the small plum-coloured figure striding along the front and, without hurrying, she had no difficulty in keeping her quarry in sight.

Mrs Mendlingham was walking along towards the Arun estuary, past the closed Smart’s Amusements, on whose wall even the perky figure of Mickey Mouse looked forlorn. The exposed metalwork of the mini-roller-coaster known as the Mouse Run gave the edifice the unfinished look of a building site. Mrs Mendlingham continued straight ahead, past the sad fairy-tale turrets of the Giant Slide.

Mrs Pargeter was intrigued. Her reconnaissance of Littlehampton two days before had been thorough and, as far as she could remember, Mrs Mendlingham appeared to be walking into a dead end, a little corner between the beach and the river.

Suddenly the plum-coloured figure was no longer visible.

Mrs Pargeter did not increase her pace. There was nowhere Mrs Mendlingham could have gone, except into one of the sea-front shelters.

These concrete structures were designed to keep the wind off the bench seats inside them, and on days when the wind was less blustery and erratic, perhaps they did. That morning they seemed only to attract little